Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and I don’t agree on much. But at least she can see the value of not shutting down the government over a law she doesn’t like (Seattle Times link). Eventually.
In a statement released Tuesday, Herrera Beutler said she’s avoided public comment before now because she wanted to give Republican leaders leeway to craft a deal.
But she said the time has come for Republicans “to face reality” and made it clear she will not vote for “poison pills” seeking to end the Affordable Care Act, which have no chance of passing the Senate or being signed into law.
Unlike Dave Reichert, who I complained about earlier, this seems legit. As we’re on the eve of a potential default, it seems like a praiseworthy thing. Especially since it’s a pretty conservative Republican who was first elected in the Tea Party wave (and who post-redistricting might be more likely to face a primary challenge than be defeated by a Democrat). So, I doubt I’ll make a habit of praising conservative Republicans in this state, but thanks Representative Herrera Buetler for recognizing reality.
The problem I have with this is that she has only agreed to vote against the “poison pill” after it’s announced that it’s dead – the House never brought it to a vote due to the lack of sufficient Republican support. Does she get credit for taking the right position only when it’s not going to matter? That sounds a bit like Reichart voting in favor of environmental legislation only when it was clear it was going to pass anyway.
And with that, the Republicans have folded without getting anything in their hostage demands. Even worse, they now bear the burden of the next election cycle trying to fend off angry voters who blame them for the shutdown.
The Republicans are stupid, but not suicidal. If you’d like to hear Sen. Ted Cruz’s sniveling, cowardly, whiny excuse for refusing to use his senatorial prerogative to delay a vote on the deal and push the country over the default cliff, which he (or any other senator) could do if he so chose, click here:
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/n...../#53296778
Of course, quite a number of whiny House Tea Party loons will vote against it, but that doesn’t matter. The only House member who can block this deal is Boehner, and he won’t. He just got his ass kicked by the Democrats (again), but he’s not going to drag the country into national economic suicide over it.
How depressing is it that when a Republican congressperson recognizes reality, it’s considered so unusual that she needs to be singled out for praise?
When I drop something, I expect it to go down, not up. Nobody ever praises me for that.
At some point,Cruz and the House Republican Tea Party caucus have to be answerable to party discipline. Attempts to blame the shutdown haven’t worked, and Mainline Republicas (there are still a few in leadership positions – especially in the Senate) have to put the pressure on their Tea Party compatriots to stike a deal. That involves using the Lyndon Johnson approach – getting close and putting your arms around the target, and quietly explain how all part resources and support would no longer be available in upcoming elections – all while grabbing the target’s balls and twisting them until the target can only nod his head and wimper in agreement.
So, a deal has been reached. Even the news media is pointing out that the Republicans have failed, Obama is getting everything he asked for weeks ago. With Cruz not making a suicidal filibuster attempt, they have a shot at getting this through the House and Senate before the day ends – but it’s going to be close.
With elections just around the corner, Democratic candidates can force the issue by asking their opponents to pledge not to shutdown the government. Might be easier to get Al-Queda to promise not to fly airplanes into skyscrapers.
Even Drudge predicts that Nancy Pelosi will regain the speakership after the mid-term elections.
Sorry, Herrera Beutler did nothing and deserves nothing. Had she announced this prior to the government being shut down, then yes. But, she waited until it was a done deal and then jumped on the on bandwagon to say “yeah, me too.”
No risk, no reward.
@6 The House isn’t a problem. Democrats can give Boehner enough votes that he only needs a few moderate Republicans, and he has enough of those. Realistically, Boehner was the only person who could’ve blocked a deal in the House, because the votes were always there to pass a clean CR. This would have been resolved weeks ago if the R’s hadn’t changed the House rules so only the Speaker, and not any House member, could bring the clean CR to the floor for an up or down vote.
@7 Apt analogy.
@3
Has to make one wonder about the political instincts of Boehner. Three weeks ago he had a political choice, bring the up or down vote and probably lose his gavel.
Not gonna do that.
Then he had, bring the vote, maybe lose his gavel AFTER tanking the chances of Republicans in upcoming special elections and pull a few billion out of the economy in a few short weeks.
Not gonna do that.
See that Republicans have possibly lost the house in 2014, bring the vote for damage control and maybe lose the gavel.
Not gonna do that.
Change house rules and leave himself in a position where he alone is responsible for utter capitulation and lose his gavel, hold out and cause default and lose his gavel and probably his house seat.
Yeah, that’s how this should be done. I alone will be either the Republican republicans love to hate of the Republican 75% of EVERY voter hates. VICTORY! WOLVERINES!
And right on cue, congressional Republicans are blaming the media spin for saying the shutdown was the fault of Republicans and the resulting utter surrender is the media’s fault.
To paraphrase John Stewart, the media said 60% of the time that the fire was the result of fire, 40% of the time that the fire was the result of combustible oxygen reactions BUT FUCKING MEDIA never once reported the fire was the result of water or sea life. Fucking Librul Media! Y’AAARGH!
The Republicans are fucking idiots. THey have handed the world stage to the Chinese, who are gloating over our idiocy. I’m watching the news from abroad and the sun is setting on the American era, thanks to the Tea Party.
Insane
Just heard on international news- “greatest threat to international economy- US Congress”
Just great. Boehner as Nero- fiddle while it all burns around you
FK Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler!
and the teabagging Republican horse she rode in on!
I don’t give a good GD about her comments or her desires. How did the Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler VOTE?
When it was time to do her job Herrera Beutler failed her constituents and her country each time.
Credit and thanks for recognizing that spilling the milk in a tantrum is bad?
FK THAT! Vote her out or she’ll go along to get along again.
@ 13
I’ve often wondered about that. Roger Ailes spent a fair amount of time in China during the Nixon and Reagan/Bush administrations. He owns the two major State-run Communist television and radio networks there. His ties with Sheldon Adelson are well-established. Sheldon Adelson has repeatedly been in trouble for his close ties Stanley Ho and the Beijing government, including several bribery and corruption scandals.
I wonder if they aren’t just flat-out selling us out to the Chinese. It’s already been established that these men are willing to throw much of American law out the window in order to enrich themselves. Why not the whole kit-n-kaboodle for a guaranteed chunk of the remains? I could certainly see the Koch brothers doing this. They’re the ones pulling the strings on the “Tea” party and the alleged think tanks behind the whole fascist cabal. Every damn thing an official “Tea” Party spokesperson comes out with is right out of the Fascist/Oligarchist tradition of propaganda.
Hell, they have nothing to worry about. By the time people start to figure it out, they’ll all be long dead and the power structure they leave behind would be well-entrenched.
Fuel for whisky-induced musings for sure.
@15: Especially now that we up here in the Soviet of Olympia have been cut free from her district (yay!), she’ll be warming that bench for the next twenty or thirty years.
Teabaggers have decided to blame moderate Republicans instead of Boehner for giving up their hopeless fight.
“After House Speaker John Boehner … announced Wednesday he will support a Senate deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling …, Republican members awarded him with a standing ovation.
Conservatives … got next to nothing they wanted. But instead of crying foul, they sung Boehner’s praises. ‘I think more of him than ever,’ Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said as he left a House GOP meeting. ‘None of this is his fault. …’
“The right flank instead blamed moderate Republicans, who they said gave Boehner little choice but to go along with the deal reached by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid … and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ….”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....11021.html
I don’t see how the actions of the republicans are winning over hearts and minds to the ideology of conservationism. I don’t see people seeing the benefits of supporting them.
Hey, somebody tell the teabagging Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and any other teabagging Republican who tries to tell you “the time has come” or “we fought the good fight” that what the teabagging Republican “party” engaged in was terrorism.
Are Herrera Beutler and Reichert ready to sign a pledge today to not ever again vote for a shut down or to hold the US hostage? No? I didn’t think so.
Hey, can somebody let the teabagging WA Republicans
(Doc Hastings WA04-R, Jaime Herrera Beutler WA03-R, Cathy McMorris Rodgers WA05-R and Republican Caucus Leader, David Reichert WA05-R) who (at best) went along with the hostage taking & ransom seeking votes to shutdown our government and play brinksmanship with the full faith and credit of our nation, that although U.S. Was Minutes From Falling To Rock-Bottom Rating John Boehner’s job a Speaker is safe.
Who said that the teabagging Republican Congress members were not not concerned about jobs?
@1, etc.,
I take your point, but it happened before there was a budget deal, so I still think it’s worth something. But, it totally should have been done several weeks ago, before the shutdown. That’s why I said “eventually” at the end of the first paragraph.
@4,
I think it’s like praising a toddler for taking their first step. It’s so unusual you have to note something. But for people who are walking around, it’s sort of a given that they can do it.
Hey Carl,
How about a shout out of thanks to the Senate’s Chairwoman of the Committee on the Budget – Washington’s own, Senator Patty Murray?
Senator Murray has actually accomplished good things for Washingtonians in her work on the federal budget and appropriations, and not just issued a statement lamenting damage she has done.
@23,
I mean I linked to things she did throughout the process. Most recently linking to her editorial in The Seattle Times. She’s way better than Herrera Beutler. I didn’t have to use qualifiers like “eventually” or anything.
MikeBoyScout — let’s recall this is Teabagged America, where terrorism is *not* political actors causing gratuitous pain and suffering, in the hope of obtaining an unreasonable concession. Nope, here terrorism means brown people trying to board airplanes. Please note the difference.
Oh Shit. The Republicans didn’t just surrender, they gave up the future hostage.
if I’m reading this correctly, the president can ignore the debt ceiling, Congress can then essentially vote no confidence but the president has veto power over their disapproval.
So holding the world economy hostage in the future will require 2/3rds vote. The ” Nothing matters but the deficit” bullshitters are gonna go nuts.
Wow, today just keeps coming up win for us jobless/ commie/facist/muslim/panic-mongering-tree-worshipers.
There was a little pork in the bill, including the Kentucky Kickback, for McConnell.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l.....enate-deal
@25 – recalling them would be too kind. Have them arrested for sedition.
@15 She showed up and voted “yea”. One of the rare times she’s shown up on the House floor, and she’s one of the few largely-absent members of Congress who’s had a legitimate excuse other than being gravely ill themselves. Good on her for doing the right thing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
@16 Some day, somebody’s going to connect the dots between Roger Ailes and a number of other “odd” occurances, like David Petraeus’ refusal to be drafted by the ultra-right to run for President and the ensuing scandal involving a very sexy lady with a shadowy background in intelligence. The man is the real-life equivalent of a villain from a James Bond movie.